1) What is the working title of your project? It’s a novella of around 35,000 words called ‘The Lempkin Variation’ that is a completed first draft, but still needs a fair amount of work.

2) Where did the idea come from for the story? I’m a closet chess fan and have always loved the potential the game holds to be used as a dramatic device. I particularly love the hustler-like atmosphere of the outdoors speed chess players in places like Washington Square Park, New York. It’s a place steeped in history and colourful characters, and has its share of ghosts. It just seemed a wonderful setting for a ghost story that I originally called ‘The Grandmaster’s Ghost’.

3) What genre does your book fall under? Horror, I guess. Much more so than some of my other writing, which I think often falls between genres, and I hate the whole genre-classification thing anyway. But, in this case, I would say this is a horror story in the fairly classic mould of ghostly/demonic possession with a Svengali-esque antagonist.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition? I would love to see Max Von Sydow as my evil Grandmaster Igor Lempkin. The part of Alex, the angry seventeen-year old chess prodigy, I’m not so sure about. If we were to go back in time, then a young Jason Schwartzman would be perfect.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? A teenage chess prodigy enters into the most dangerous game he’s ever played with an old Grandmaster who is not what he seems.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? Nowhere near that point yet, but I doubt it will be with an agency due to its length, so I hope to sell it to one of the many excellent small press publishers around. I don’t think self-publishing is quite for me.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript? I had the first five hundred words written for almost two years, and then the rest all happened in the space of about four months.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? I’ve no doubt someone else could give me many examples, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book? Simply, the game of chess. When I first seriously got into it, I loved the way chess notation looked like some sort of arcane mathematical equations. There is a particular magic to the game of chess that, for me, surpasses so many other games. It has a philosophy about it that can be applied to any area of life. There are so many doomed, tragic, insane figures associated with it, and therefore an almost unlimited wellspring of stories. This story began life as a sentence I wrote, which read ‘Why not write a book about chess?’ Combine that with my love for fast, 3-minute ‘Blitz’ chess and the characters I’ve met over the years involved with that and so the idea formed, adopting a theme of the old vs the new, which in chess is very much about the stuffy old guard of male-dominated tournaments vs the rising tide of fabulous young players utilising the internet and computers to learn from an earlier and earlier age (some of the youngest grandmasters are now 12 and 13 years old). And also the rise of players from countries like China and the huge talent pool of female players suppressed by the ridiculous rating system that separates them from the men. That is all changing now, with the rise of players like the Kosintseva sisters, and Alexandra Kosteniuk and You Hifan and all the women competing at the top level of the game.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest? At its heart, the story is a thriller, and it’s about identity. The New York locations. A peek into a world you might otherwise not have a chance to see.

So I now have to tag some other authors and pass the task on to them. It’s supposed to be five, but as this meme spreads it becomes harder and harder to find an author who hasn’t already been tagged.

I’m tagging: Gio Clairval, Henry Szabranski and Michael Keyton, whose answers should hopefully be found on their respective blogs next Wednesday 5th December.

Gio Clairval is an accomplished translator, having contributed several translations to The Weird, and is a published short story writer.

Time to cap the month off with a rambling post about writing. Yes, this is a writing blog, even if I have diverged into film reviews of late (and attracted more blog traffic than ever…).

I’ve mentioned before how Autumn’s fruitful attributes often translate into writing accomplishments for me. It’s something to do with that sensation of winter encroaching, of harvesting and stocking up food – making casseroles and soups in abundance. The weather is always dramatic one way or the other. The east coast USA is currently in the jaws of Hurricane Sandy. Leaves are abandoning their branches lemming-style and I feel like I’m watching the whole thing in sped-up time-lapse photography with a suitably apocalyptic Philip Glass soundtrack layering the scene with building menace.

I find my dreams are even more fecund and bizarre at this time of the year. That may be partly due to my body battling off the annual assault of cold viruses and infections. This is also due to my writing output increasing back to old levels. I’m relatively pleased with the amount of new stories I’ve written in the last six months. And the ongoing project of completing the various first drafts and aborted attempts littering my hard drive is progressing apace. I’m still no closer to starting any of the novel ideas, although I regularly add to the growing files of notes on all of them. There are four ideas all competing for attention in the category of novel-waiting-to-be-written. Only one of them fills me with confidence that it’s a good idea, but it’s the one that will be the most research-heavy and although I’ve begun that research, I still need to read a lot more history before I can attempt it.

As a way to prepare for the sort of effort required to revise a longer piece, I hope to attempt a revision on my long-forgotten novella about chess and demonic possession, The Lempkin Variation. Hence the chess-related image above. It’s a story that’s entirely worth the effort of revision. It always has been, but I am a lazy, work-shy ne’er-do-well and have a magical bottomless bag of excuses for not doing what I should be doing. As a writer friend of mine said to me the other day in an email. –

Start finishing your stuff. I’d put money on the fact that you’re probably sitting on a pile of gems.

Best news of all, although this isn’t an official announcement yet (I’ll do that once it’s, well… official), I sold a story this morning to a really great magazine. It’s a story I only wrote in July and had only sent it one other place where it received a swift rejection. It’s a story of drug addiction, nostalgia and transcendence. I’ll have more news to follow and it will get its day in the spotlight. Bring it on, Winter.

Bearing in mind that my weekend is a Sunday/Monday rather than the traditional one, this has been a momentous weekend for me and others.

I met up with an old friend and as a result found myself on my knees on Princes Street playing speed chess (or ‘blitz’ as it’s more commonly known). It was nice to play some face-to-face chess again (even if I only managed to win one out of about eight games over the weekend), and reminded me of a certain novella I need to revise. Add to this massive life-changing decisions for the two people closest to me in life, and it all makes for an atmosphere of huge potential; the feeling that anything can happen.

Woven through all of this was a full-on weekend of Edinburgh Fringe-going, with Frisky and Mannish and Jon Richardson being most enjoyable, and just the atmosphere of the whole place, reminding me why I live in this great city with history practically seeping out of the walls. Leaving a show in the evening, breathing the still night air with just a whisper of sea breeze, to be almost knocked off your feet by the fighter jet screaming overhead towards the castle to entertain the folk watching the Tattoo. Lying in Princes Street Gardens eating ice-cream. Drifting with the crowds from all over this planet (and possibly others – who knows, I wouldn’t be surprised) through the streets of the old town.

And to top it off with a glistening cherry, I discovered a review of ‘Unpicking the Stitches’ in the British literary zine Neon. And it’s a generous, humbling and inspiring review, reminding me that I can write and must push on and make something of this. Incidentally, I did once submit a story Neon, probably two years ago at least, and received a kind and helpful personal rejection.

And no, I’m not talking about my gas/electricity bill, but a personal plan for streamlining the ideas/writing/rewriting process. It’s nothing alarmingly new, and is based purely upon advice I’ve already seen repeated a thousand times (it is possible to spend more time reading advice for writers than breathing).

After a few months of staring in quiet desperation at unfinished and unrevised stories, and at a burgeoning ideas file in need of fertilising, I seem to have found a returning passion for the craft – at last. I fished out the 3900 words of uncompleted SF story I started over two months ago and immediately found my way back into it. Three separate ideas all glowed with possibility, and I have just about reached a final draft on “Down the Back of Donald’s Couch‘, my surreal, existential horror tale about the sanctity of living room furniture and losing yourself.

So the plan is to have a three-pronged attack on the go (all until I can finally complete and prepare the research and plotting for the Drover novel).

Work up an idea into a writeable story.

Write another story.

Revise an already written story.

Simple and well-tried, but it keeps me busy and focused, and never without work. The emptiness that follows completion of a draft is often a difficult void to fill, but we’ll see if my plan can work.

And at the same time I’m enjoying the wonders of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and today will hopefully play a little street chess (and likely lose in a most humiliating manner, but it’ll be fun.)

Not the actual wriggling underneath sticks, but more the complex footwork involved after the end of a long project, as you dance your way through the limbo of revising and rewriting and hope to end up at the opposite side of the dance floor in some sort of artful position. Preferably not in a heap with my arse sticking up into the air.

Finished writing the chess horror novella – ‘The Lempkin Variation’ – which is the name I’ll probably stick with. Sounds a little too much like a Robert Ludlum title for my liking, but the content is very different. Length of first draft is 34,675 words. It’s balanced precariously at the moment between being snipped to within an inch of its life by the editing secateurs, hopefully coming down close 25K, or, as one writing compatriot is suggesting, to expand – turn it into a novel. Specifically a YA novel (that’s Young Adult for those unfamiliar with the ridiculous amount of acronyms used by writers) – apparently a very lucrative market, and the story would fit, believe it or not, as it has a teenage protagonist and deals with the paranormal to an extent. Not a route I ever thought I’d take, but then this novella did just mug me one day and demand to be written, so perhaps I should continue to follow its demands before it knifes me and leaves me for dead.

Now that’s over, I enter limbo, and pick up the shreds of old short stories and try to stick them back together. Some are in worse states of disrepair than others, but I want to get at least five of them out into the submissions queue, which means I’d have nine total doing the rounds at the moment. I’m quite comfortable with that.

Other updates – been reading as well as writing. Just finished last night, ‘The Blue Mask‘ by British author Joel Lane, which although it isn’t strictly horror in the sense of his short stories, it could easily be considered horror. The writing was excellent – a model of concision combined with strong and disturbing imagery. Magazines have been ‘Black Static #18 most recently, with its usual brand of otherworldly horror and disturbing tales. A great short story I read last week was ‘Arvies‘ by Adam-Troy Castro in Lightspeed magazine.

9 days holiday equals writing stagnation. 2 days back at work divided by motivation to the power of inspiration equals 150 new words plus a page of notes to finish this damn thing.

The novella stands at 23,945 words. Not a whelk’s chance in a supernova I’ll finish it under 25,000 words. Halfway through chapter 17 at the moment, so it could finish with a nice round 20 chapters. I had hoped it could be brought to a close before I went away, but one’s expectations are generally thwarted by ones propensity for procrastination. Distraction equals the internet multiplied by time. When using a real chess game for the novella, researching different lines to take the game down at the crunch point equals lost hours spent battling my Fritz chess program to see if I could win it from that position. Pointless. A renewed interest in playing chess equals more hours spent getting thrashed in 3 minute games by German kids on the live chess server, Playchess.

What does all this add up to now? A foothold on the final stretch to climb to the top of this beast and plant my flag. It calculates out as an equation for writing discipline, which is fine in theory, but application is another thing altogether with the random factors of TV, caffeine withdrawal and the fine art of daydreaming. The best discipline I can muster is to plant myself in front of the PC at some point every evening, open up that writing file and start bashing keys.

Distractions have proved manifold on the way into July. Yep, another monthly update, as I mark the time out of some need to calibrate my existence.

Still watching the World Cup. Still. Only two games left. Wimbledon also been a major distraction, with the travails of Andy Murray occupying my hours. Sport providing excitement, a vicarious thrill, but ultimately gorging on my time like the slavering beast of procrastination it is.

This is not to say that I haven’t been writing – up to 19,160 words on ‘The Lempkin Variation’ – and I’m still unsure about its merit as a piece of writing. Sure, some of it I’m happy with, but it’s not really a profound piece of literature. Despite devouring Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Philip Roth, Bernard Malamud etc… as a youth, I seem to get more of a kick out of writing about demonic possession, chess playing ghosts and murder. There’s plenty of time for profundity.

Current reading includes Black Static 17, with John Shirley’s ‘Faces in Walls’ being a standout story. Also just finished Interzone 228. Novel in progress at the moment is ‘The Rapture’ by Liz Jensen – which I am thoroughly enjoying.

My novella about ghostly possession, murder and chess is ticking along at a reasonable pace. Up to 12,500 words last night. Which puts me square on half way (I hope. Must reign in the extravagance.) Writing so much about chess, you would think that my game might improve, but since I started this novella, I’ve won a single game and lost about ten. Ominous. At least the momentum is with the writing, and I’m enjoying it. It may turn out to be a pile of pulpy nonsense, but it was screaming to be written. I’d had the first page and a half down for two years, chipping away at a plot that wouldn’t reveal itself. I still have some stuff to figure out with it – some pot-boiling sub-plots that I only have a vague clue about where I’m taking.

Like a good game of chess, it starts out with set-in-stone grand plans, goes a bit wobbly in the middle as the plan self-evolves into a messy march toward the end where the opponent kindly drops a piece by accident and you win by force. Or something.

I need to make more time for reading. It’s taken me close to two months to read ‘Slights’ by Kaaron Warren. Not because it’s bad (it’s a disturbing and fascinating read that gets better and better as it builds in layers toward the end). Because I only read for about thirty minutes a day at the moment. And I want to read more novels. I read a lot of short stories.

But it is June. The month of never-ending days; street still bathed in cold sunshine at 10.30pm. Sometimes feels like if you could squeeze the day at the right points (like a flat toothpaste tube) then a pea-sized amount of time could be found and put to use.

There goes another month sucked down the plughole of time. And here I am trying to avoid the whirlpool and the jammed hairs and stay on my feet.

Thought I’d better get a monthly update in before the month is gone. Two weeks holiday on the tranquil shores of Loch Fyne have eaten up the majority of the month and, oh, how I wish I was still there (with a decent internet connection rather than the dreadful on/off nonsense I managed to tap into while there).

I did accomplish some writing while there, albeit a small amount, but it seems to have been enough to propel my motivation as I’m now close to 9000 words into my chess-themed novella, ‘The Lempkin Variation’. And I’m feeling the buzz of writing again which is a novelty after the slog of revising that I’ve been doing prior to this.

The revising paid off to an extent, although I didn’t get quite as much done as I’d wanted, but it resulted in a few submissions. Most of which are still away. One rejection already, and I have a story away for close to nine months at one place. It’s a place I really like, so I want to keep it there as long as I can stand. I queried once in February and received no response, then once more last week, but still nothing. Beginning to lose my patience with it.

And there endeth the update – light on content, but it’s a way back in, and I shall blog some more, in fact I feel a rant coming on…

Spent the last few days in a caravan in the Ayrshire Hills, waking to the cry of a cockerel – about the most gentle alarm clock you could ask for, if perhaps not the most reliable as it only emerged when the weather cleared.

I don’t want to complain at length about the weather as fun was still had, peace was gained and contemplation acquired, but… This was the view I became the most familiar with at the wheel of the car –

Apocalyptic rain and wind, leading eventually to blizzards and driving through a surreal landscape back to Edinburgh that felt more like Lapland.

Writing-wise, it gave me a few new ideas and injected a little life into some old ones. I also had the time to finish some reading – in particular China Mieville’s ‘The City and The City‘, which was superb. It was also nice to be separated from technology for a little while – cut off from internet and mobile phone reception, just fresh air, a peacock for a neighbour and a 10 mile drive down a frightening road to civilisation. Lorries seem much larger and more solid when speeding past you with not much more than an inch of separation. On the way home, after being passed by a fleet of certain blue trucks, I had the thought that there could no more ignominious an end as to be flattened by an Argos truck.

Projects for the writing now include a continuation of the blitz on my completed first draft short stories to make some mass submissions very soon. Then, for a new writing project, I may finally write ‘The Grandmaster’s Ghost‘ – a possibly quite conventional horror tale, in terms of my normal ‘edge-of-genre’ stuff – this will have a ghost, demonic possession, murder and blitz chess. Leaning towards a novella in terms of length if I want it to play it out the way I foresee, with concentration on strong character relationships and scene-setting. Hell, it may even end up longer… But it’s calling to me, and I had an epiphany about the main character which has solved my central issue with writing it in the first place. Who am I trying to convince here?